Chapter 6 : The Last Fire

The day began with the soft hiss of the coffee machine and the quiet hum of the station's overhead lights. It was barely past dawn, that strange in-between hour where the world felt too still for anything to go wrong. The firehouse smelled faintly of burnt toast and sea air drifting in from the nearby coast. Somewhere in the garage, the engines clicked as they cooled from their morning maintenance runs.

Bari leaned against the worn countertop, mug in hand, his dark hair still damp from a quick shower. Across from him, Elias sat perched on a stool, shoveling scrambled eggs onto toast in the half-distracted way young men did when they were more interested in the conversation than the food.

"You ever think about just quitting?" Elias asked between bites.

Bari raised an eyebrow. "Every day. And then I remember, I'm good at this." He took a sip. "You're too young to be asking that question."

Elias smirked. "Old man wisdom?"

"Common sense," Bari said, but there was a ghost of a grin on his face.

For a few minutes, it was just the sound of the coffee machine gurgling and the distant gulls crying over the harbor.

Then the radio cracked to life.

The voice from dispatch was clipped and urgent. "All units — major vegetation fire. Coordinates inbound. Possible structures threatened. Repeat: major vegetation fire."

Elias was halfway to the garage before the words finished, excitement lighting up his face like a spark catching tinder. Bari, slower, set his mug down with a deliberate clink and moved to the gear racks.

They suited up in practiced silence — jackets zipped, helmets clipped, gloves tugged snug — each movement a small ritual. Bari checked Elias's straps without asking, tightening a loose buckle at the waist. "You're not walking into a wedding," he said. "Make it neat."

The garage doors groaned open. Sunlight spilled in, warm and golden — but out there, the horizon was already smeared with an ugly smear of black.

The truck roared down the coastal road, its siren wailing against the crash of waves far below the cliffside. Pines and eucalypts lined the route, their branches swaying violently. Bari stared out the passenger window, watching the treetops move.

"The wind's wrong," he muttered, almost to himself.

Elias glanced at him. "What?"

"Just keep your head down," Bari said.

The smell of smoke reached them before the fire did. Then came the sight — a low, rolling tide of orange cresting over the tree line, smoke boiling upward in monstrous columns. Ash drifted across the road like gray snow.

At the site, the world turned into noise and heat. Radios spat overlapping commands, hoses hissed and roared, and every breath was a drag of dry, bitter air. Bari visor reflected a horizon that looked like the gates of hell itself.

The teams split. Elias peeled off with two others toward a cluster of threatened homes. Bari stayed central, scanning the shifting smoke, watching how the flames moved along the ridge. Something in his gut turned over.

"Wind's shifting," he barked into his radio. "We're boxed in if it keeps up. Get people moving."

No one answered right away — too much chaos. Bari didn't wait.

The fire turned faster than expected. One moment the treeline was burning in a controlled front; the next, ember storms whirled down from above, setting the undergrowth aflame ahead of them.

"Fall back! FALL BACK!" Bari's voice was raw over the radio.

Visibility dropped to almost nothing. Smoke clawed at their throats, heat pressed against their skin like a weight. Dwight took point, guiding his group through the hellscape, ducking under half-fallen trunks and pushing through thickets of burning leaves.

They broke into a shallow clearing — blessedly free of flames — and for a moment, Bari thought they'd made it. Then he counted heads — but Elias wasn't there.

***

Bari didn't think. He turned back into the smoke.

Through the blur of heat shimmer, Elias appeared — stumbling forward, coughing so hard he nearly fell. Behind him, a burning branch cracked loose from above, swinging down like an executioner's blade.

Bari lunged, shoving Elias forward. The branch crashed across his back with a force that drove him to one knee. The heat bit instantly through the jacket.

"Go!" Bari rasped.

"I'm not—" Elias's voice broke, eyes wild.

Bari grabbed his arm, shoving him toward the faint outline of safety. "Listen to me. You live through this. You don't waste it. No regrets. No guilt. Just live. You hear me?"

Elias shook his head violently, tears cutting streaks through the ash on his face. "I'm not leaving you!"

"You are," Bari said. His voice was calm now, steady, as if stating a fact of nature. "And when you look back, don't you dare carry my death like a stone in your gut. That's not how I want to be remembered."

Another groan from above — more branches breaking. Bari shoved Elias hard, sending him stumbling toward the light.

***

The world closed in around him. The flames weren't a wall anymore; they were a tide, curling inward, hungry. Heat pulsed in waves, the roar of combustion drowning out everything else.

For a moment, Bari saw flashes of his past — the clang of a prison bell, the press of cell bars, the stink of sweat and metal. All those times he'd thought he wouldn't make it out alive… and somehow did.

This time, there was no escape.

He straightened, eyes steady, facing the fire head-on. The glow wrapped around him until he was nothing but a dark silhouette in an ocean of light.

Then the roar swallowed him.